


The Spoon

by Dark_And_Twisted_Thing



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: ...maybe next time, Domestic Fluff, Hannibal is an uptight idiot, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, but we love him, but we love him too, this could easily have just turned into kitchen sex, will is an ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 22:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7988947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_And_Twisted_Thing/pseuds/Dark_And_Twisted_Thing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal and Will have a fight. </p><p>A one shot piece of domestic fluff during which nothing of significance happens, no psychoanalytical conversations are had, and everyone manages to escape physical injury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blesser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blesser/gifts).



> For my dearest blesser, who is always a joy to cook with. Never again will I dare to question your place settings...because look at what happens:

“How many pieces?”

Pushing the fridge door shut with his elbow, Will balanced the bread and butter in one hand while he moved across the kitchen to find a clean chopping board. Hannibal shifted down the counter slightly to accommodate him, sliding his chopping board full of fresh herbs with him.  

“Four should be sufficient.”

Will eyed the very small loaf of bread without much enthusiasm. 

“It’s tiny. Four will barely get us anywhere.”

“It is supposed to be an accompaniment to the soup, not the main course.”

“What if you want to tear some of it up and put it in the soup?”

Hannibal shot him a withering look, and Will held his hands up in defeat.  

“Alright. I thought you were making this for me. Shouldn’t I be allowed to eat it however I want?”

Placing his knife down on the counter pointedly, Hannibal turned around.

“If you mix the bread with the broth it will make the bread stodgy and ruin the balance - “

Will took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as he was forced to endure a long winded explanation regarding the science of flavour, and the delicate balance of herbs which had gone into making the soup. Red pepper and lentil soup to be exact, a culinary choice which Will was currently regretting.

The lecture ended and Will put his glasses back on. 

“How you ever survived the food in prison is beyond me.”

Hannibal looked offended. 

“I am perfectly capable of eating poor food. Or simply prepared food for that matter - although the food provided during my incarceration definitely fell into the first category. I simply prefer not to.”

Turning his back to Hannibal and opening the cutlery drawer resignedly, Will pulled out a knife and began to slice the bread. 

“You know, there’s a conversation to be had here about your track record of forcing me to make choices which you deem are the right ones.”

Receiving no reply, Will looked around to discover Hannibal had disappeared. 

“Typical,” he mused to himself as he returned to his task. 

Will sliced the ordered four pieces of bread and buttered them swiftly. As he worked, he could hear the sounds of classical music emanating softly from the dinning room, and he rolled his eyes at the implication. 

It was freezing outside. The forecasted blizzard had been raging for several hours, and the back yard was now completely covered by several feet of snow. Will had been outside before dawn broke that morning, triumphantly returning after several hours bearing half a dozen fish clutched in his frozen fingers. Leaving the fish for Hannibal to clean and gut, Will had departed again after a cup of coffee, and he had spent the remaining few hours of bearable weather chopping a rather large amount of fire wood, most of which was now safely stored in the covered lean-to outside the back door. He had suggested soup to Hannibal as a comfort food, wondering if he might be allowed to get away with sipping it out of a mug on the sofa in front of the fire. The sounds of music coming from the direction of the dinning room and the amount of time Hannibal had been absent from the kitchen suggested he might have to put this dream to rest, and Will revised his plans to possibly involve changing clothes before sitting down on the ludicrously expensive upholstered chairs which graced the dining room.

Hannibal returned presently, bustling over to the pot of soup on the stove and releasing a cloud of steam as he lifted the lid. The spotless white apron tied neatly around his waist (why did he even bother, he never spilled anything) and the faint expression of worry on his face as he leaned over the pot made Will smile. He watched Hannibal fuss over the soup which had been suggested as a casual meal, and wondered why it was not possible for the man to do anything by halves. 

“Done?” Will asked, crossing the kitchen and getting a face full of steam as he too poured over the bubbling pot of soup. 

“It should be. Would you like to try it?”

“Sure.”

Hannibal went to fetch a spoon from the drawer, and Will closed his eyes, letting the comfortingly spicy aroma of the soup wash over his senses. He’d be willing to sacrifice an evening on the sofa for something which smelled that good, he decided, still vaguely worried about whether or not he should try and change before eating. 

Returning to Will’s side, Hannibal dipped a spoon into the soup and held it out to Will. 

“It’s very hot,” he said, pointlessly. 

“Thank you, Doctor Science,” Will shot back, taking the spoon and sipping the soup gingerly. 

Hannibal smiled patiently and awaited the verdict. 

“It’s good,” Will said. 

He handed the spoon back to Hannibal, his flair for understatement not allowing him to explain exactly how the perfect mixture of spices and vegetables warmed him all the way to his toes.

“I am pleased to hear it,” Hannibal replied, dipping the spoon back into the soup and trying some himself. 

He frowned and opened his mouth to speak. 

Will stopped the inevitable discourse about how the soup needed some further tweaking before it could begin.  

“It’s good the way it is.”

Looking as though the effort was paining him physically, Hannibal nodded and put the lid back on the pot. 

“The table is nearly set, we can eat in a few moments,” he said, taking the spoon over to the sink. 

“I’ll use that spoon,” Will stated absently, looking down at his worn jeans and wondering if he could maybe just sit on some newspaper. 

Hannibal stopped and fixed him with a horrified expression.  “What?” he asked, flatly. 

“What?” Will asked, confused.

“You will have a fresh spoon, surely. We have used this one.”

Will looked genuinely perplexed. 

“Yes. For the soup. Which we are going to be eating.”

Hannibal looked at the spoon in his hand, and frowned again. 

“Fresh cutlery will be on the table.”

“That’s just another spoon to wash. Just stick that one in my bowl and I’ll re-use it. Save the washing up.”

“But it will ruin my place settings.”

There was a pause during which Will understood the situation completely and wondered briefly if he should simply capitulate. He decided against it. 

“It’s soup, Hannibal. It’s the sort of meal you just eat.”

“You can eat it just as well with a fresh spoon.”

“Which I will then have to wash.”

“I will wash it.”

“Rinse that one off and put it on the table then.”

“Now you are just being petulant.”

Will took off his glasses again and rubbed tiredly at his eyes.

“No, you are being fussy. I’m being normal.”

“Normal,” Hannibal repeated, his facial expression lapsing quickly into the blank open stare Will had come to expect from their therapy sessions back in Baltimore. 

“Now most people would have just said something rude about me not being normal, but you can’t do that. Always trying to be a therapist, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be rude, Will,” Hannibal replied coldly.

Will threw his hands up in frustration.

“I want to eat. I don’t want to do a lot of washing up. It’s not rude, it’s just practical.”

“I have already offered to do the dishes. Therefore your objection at this point is merely a theoretical one, and you are arguing the point only to be petulant. Which is rude.”

Sorely temped to say something along the lines of “What are you going to do - eat me?”, Will instead opted to walk across the kitchen and snatch the spoon out of Hannibal’s hand.

“I’m using this spoon. I wanted to eat out of a mug on the couch. I’m already making one concession to your obsessive need to treat every meal as if it were an operatic production.”

Hannibal closed his eyes and rearranged his face into a blissfuly clam formation Will had come to recognise as barely suppressed rage. 

“Does the thought of me eating your fancy soup on the sofa using a dirty spoon fill you with that much disdain?” Will asked, realising he had gone too far to turn back now.

“Will,” Hannibal said, dangerously. 

“You aren’t able to just give me this one are you? You can’t even let me see that you’re angry. Shut off, just like always.”

“And you are deliberately attempting to rile me, as always,” Hannibal replied, opening his eyes and staring down at Will with a look in his eyes which most people would never live to see again. 

“Would it help if I dumped all the cutlery in the soup? Then it would all be even.”

“Will,” Hannibal repeated, tensing his jaw. 

Will walked over to the cutlery drawer and yanked it open. He was still not entirely sure why he was taking this ridiculous fight so far, but Hannibal’s intransigence had gotten under his skin, and he was now committed to poking this particular bear until it bit him. He pulled out a handful of spoons, and walked over to the soup. Taking the lid off, he dropped them all into the steaming pot, using the spoon which had started it all to give the mixture a stir. The sudden influx of cutlery sent the soup spilling over the edge of the pot, and it sizzled on the hot burner, sticking to the metal of the stove top and running down the edge of the cooker.

Hannibal stood stock still in the middle of the kitchen, his expression still carefully neutral. 

Pulling open a cupboard, Will selected one of the plain tin mugs he took on his fishing trips and dipped it into the soup. He stuck his spoon into the mug and stalked back over to Hannibal. 

“And what’s the point of this thing?” he asked, gesturing to Hannibal’s pristine apron. “It’s just a part of your costume. You never get anything on it.”

Picking up one end of the white cloth, Will used it to wipe the soup off the side of his mug, leaving a bright red stain on the spotless fabric. Standing directly in front of Hannibal, he took a spoonful of soup from the mug and swallowed it. 

“Tastes the same as it would have done in the dining room with a new spoon, except now I can go sit on the sofa instead of worrying about whether or not I’m dressed correctly.”

Will stalked out of the room clutching his mug rather tightly, feeling simultaneously a bit silly and rather worried about his personal safety. He made it to the sofa without incident, and he perched on the edge of the cushions, eating his soup without really enjoying it. When Hannibal had not appeared by the ten minute mark, Will knew exactly what he was doing. He (correctly) pictured Hannibal in the kitchen, using a pair of tongs to fish the cutlery out of the soup before washing each spoon carefully and selecting one to complete his place setting in the dining room. He heard the washing machine start and surmised that Hannibal had removed his spoiled apron and was washing it to avoid the stain setting in. 

Quite a large part of Will wanted to go make it up with Hannibal - just get a clean spoon from the kitchen and join him in the dining room with an apologetic expression on his face. Hannibal had both given and received worse, and they were both aware that their relationship (domestic or otherwise) was fraught with potential pitfalls, not all of which could be avoided. They were markedly different people, and their current living arrangement had brought their differences crashing to the fore. Of course Will could dress up, buy an eye-wateringly expensive tweet coat, and pretend he wanted to be as sophisticated as Hannibal, but he would always return to his natural, slightly disheveled state eventually. In much the same way, Hannibal would occasionally pull on a pair of hiking boots and wander around the woods with Will, but he too was a creature of habit, and his habits happened to involve far too many silk ties and an incorrigible flair for the dramatic. Will did not usually mind this, and he was well aware that their current fight had more to do with Hannibal’s inability to allow for compromise at the right points than it did the actual spoon. 

Just as he was beginning to think his genuine regret over the stupidity of the fight was going to win out over his stubbornness, Will heard Hannibal enter the living room. 

 “Will,” Hannibal said, his voice sounding warm and quiet. 

Pushing himself to his feet and putting the mug of soup down on the coffee table, Will turned to face Hannibal, and laughed. 

Hannibal stood in the doorway, holding a tin mug in one hand and a spoon in the other, his expression still a little closed, but in a considerably less threatening way. 

“I apologise, Will. I failed to appreciate how tired you must be.”

Will laughed again, ducking his head down and staring at his feet. 

“Sorry, I think I got carried away.”

“It is understandable that you would not want to eat in the dining room after so much physical labour. I believe the argument was a result of your exhaustion and irritation at being unable to relax during dinner.”

Still smiling, Will looked at Hannibal as he stood awkwardly clutching the steaming mug. 

“You fished all the spoons out of the soup, I take it.”

“Of course.”

“You might like eating in here. It’s how soup like that ought to be eaten.”

“I will choose to take that as a compliment, Will,” Hannibal replied, a little dubiously. 

“It was meant as one. It’s good soup.”

“So you said.”

Hannibal still looked a little uncertain, and Will took pity on him. 

“Worse things have failed to break us, Hannibal. I hardly think it was going to be a spoon which resulted in an irrevocable divide.”

“It only serves to highlight - “

“It serves to highlight that you are a stubborn ass without any ability to empathise when place settings are involved, and I’m not capable of dropping something without seeing it through,” Will shrugged, “Nothing particularly new there. We’ll survive.”

Hannibal smiled. 

“Yes, we will. We always do.”


End file.
